Curbside rally staged for recycling

Anne Robinson, recycling education coordinator for the City of Savannah, other city representatives and community recycling advocates rally at the corner of Abercorn St. and Mall Blvd. on Saturday to draw attention to the city's rollout of curbside recycling on January 5. Hunter McRae/Savannah Morning News

Rosa Everett, city representatives and other community recycling advocates rally at the corner of Abercorn Street and Mall Boulevard on Saturday to draw attention to the city's rollout of curbside recycling on Jan. 5. Hunter McRae/Savannah Morning News

Karen Grainey, city representatives and other community recycling advocates rally at the corner of Abercorn Street and Mall Boulevard on Saturday to draw attention to the city's rollout of curbside recycling on Jan. 5. Hunter McRae/Savannah Morning News

City of Savannah representatives and community recycling advocates rally at the corner of Abercorn Street and Mall Boulevard on Saturday to draw attention to the city's rollout of curbside recycling on Jan. 5. Hunter McRae/Savannah Morning News

Newell Recycling of Savannah, LLC represents our third Newell location operating a megashredder, and the tenth location overall for our company. The 6000-horsepower megashredder, manufactured by The Shredder Company of El Paso, Texas, is the centerpiece of the Savannah ferrous operations, and is capable of processing more than 2,000 tons of scrap cars, appliances, and light steel daily. (photo courtesy of the company)

What better way to promote the city’s new recycling program than to throw a grassroots rally along a busy intersection.

On Saturday morning, eight members of the community and a couple of city workers joined Curtis Sanders, Savannah’s new director of recycling and litter services, as they held signs aloft at the corner of Mall Boulevard and Abercorn Street.

The group was celebrating the coming of the city’s new recycling program, which begins Jan 5.

“It’s about serving your community,” Sanders said after creating a sign instructing motorists to honk if they recycle. “Not everyone can be in the Army, but anyone can recycle.”

Within moments of Sanders lifting up the sign, it began generating a few beeps and honks from motorists on one of the metro area’s busiest crossroads.

Sanders said he’s confident area residents are getting the drift on recycling and why it’s important.

“Of all the things we need to do to make this successful, the first is education, and the last is education,” he said. Sanders noted that some residents already have asked for extra containers.

Moreover, recycling in Savannah isn’t nearly as complicated as the old days, when people were expected to segregate paper, plastics and metals into separate bins. The city has adopted a single-stream recycling program, allowing residents to dump all recyclable paper, metals and plastics into one bin.

“All they have to do is rinse out the cans before they put them in,” Sanders said.

At least seven others took in the brief rays of the Saturday afternoon sun to inform passersby about the recycling program. Siblings Jarná and Theopolis Ware, ages 14 and 17, both said the program would help keep Savannah beautiful.

“It would help keep the community clean,” Jarná Ware said. “Instead of throwing stuff away, we can recycle it.”

Theopolis added that the program would support the environment because it would “keep trash off the street.”

Rosa Everett also thought the program would keep Savannah a little cleaner, along with promoting more pride in the area.

“Recycling is so important in our community because it will remind people to keep our neighborhoods clean,” she said.

A second recycling rally is planned at the same location from 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. Saturday.